IPCRB facility breaks ground at St. Jude campus

A $114 million Integrated Patient Care and Research Building (IPCRB) recently broke ground at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis. Skanska USA of Parsippany, N. J., is the project's general contractor.

The IPCRB will house the Department of Radiological Sciences and will provide space for future expansion of inpatient activities and new research laboratories. The 300,000-sq.-ft. facility will be completed in March 2007.

The motivation for constructing the six-story, $114 million IPCRB reflects the need to modernize the facilities for Diagnostic Imaging and Radiation Oncology, as well as to provide for expansion driven by the availability of new technologies, particularly functional imaging and more precise radiation therapy.

Space on the first floor of the current ALSAC Tower, to be vacated by Radiological Sciences, will become available for potential outpatient expansion. Thus, the project will create the opportunity for growth over the next decade in each of the hospital's core activities.

Planners envision the IPCRB as eventually having two towers, with one tower built now and a second tower constructed in the future. The IPCRB will connect to the existing complex of buildings.

Radiation Oncology will occupy the IPCRB's plaza (basement) level, with Diagnostic Imaging located on the first floor. When the building is completed, the second floor will house an inpatient unit, the fifth and sixth floors will contain research laboratories, and offices for Radiation Oncology and Diagnostic Imaging will occupy two-thirds of the building's third floor.

With the help of the architect, the SmithGroup, a flexible design will accommodate potential future growth while solving the complexities of maintaining continuity among the buildings that make up the hospital's core complex.